


The All-Atlantis Quidditch Tournament

by Isis



Series: Clarke's Law [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Action & Romance, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Ensemble Cast, F/M, Humor, Quidditch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 08:01:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3242246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/pseuds/Isis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney swallowed and shook his head from side to side, as though he was sure he must have heard it wrong.  "<em>Broom</em>sticks?"</p><p>"Oh, yes," said Harry.  "I've always thought Atlantis needed a Quidditch league."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The All-Atlantis Quidditch Tournament

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place some months after the events of [Clarke's Law](http://archiveofourown.org/works/672030) (which you should read first). It's set in the same universe, which means that it is consistent with SGA through _Lost Boys_ (middle of S2) and with HP through _Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince_ , but diverges from both canons at that point.
> 
> This story is an unconscionably late commission for Jess Harbour, who won my services in an auction held by the LJ community "Sweet Charity" back in 2008. 
> 
> Thanks to my beta readers Malnpudl and Wychwood.

Carson caught up with Rodney on the way down to the east pier. "It's a bit like Christmas, isn't it."

"I never got a P90 and a box of explosives for Christmas," said Rodney. "Although you should have seen what I managed with the chemistry set I got when I was eight."

"You've got explosives coming in on the Daedalus?"

"Carson, would I waste my precious cargo space on explosives? I'm talking about Sheppard and the Marines. They love the stuff. Why bother solving a problem when you can just blow it up?"

"Hullo, Dr. McKay, Dr. Beckett," came a cheery voice from behind them. 

"Or turn it into a newt," muttered Rodney, just loudly enough for Carson to hear, before nodding his head at Harry Potter. "Good morning, Potter. I suppose you have a shipment of exotic witchcraft…thingies?" he said, waving an arm vaguely in the air. 

"Could say that," Harry said, and Carson almost laughed out loud at Rodney's sour expression. After he'd successfully performed the Patronus spell on the Wraith hive ship, he'd become a little more accustomed to magic – but only a little. As long as you called it "Ancient technology" in front of him, it was all right.

"What, eye of newt, toe of dog, that sort of thing?"

"Toe of frog, you mean," said Hermione, who'd come up behind them. "Wool of bat and tongue of dog, and so on. Actually, potions ingredients are generally derived from magical creatures rather than ordinary –"

"No lectures, please," said Harry Potter, rolling his eyes. Carson couldn't blame him; in the months since the wizards and witches had come to Atlantis, he'd spent enough time around Hermione to recognize her "schoolteacher voice." "Anyway, it's not potions ingredients. I'm pants at potions," he told them cheerfully.

"So what is it?" asked Rodney as they arrived at the east pier. It bustled with activity, as it always did when the Daedalus landed on Atlantis. The Asgard beam was flashing brightly as crates of supplies were transferred out of the hold, then quickly whisked to their recipients by a group of Marines. Of course, in the old days, the Marines carried the crates; now they transported them with spells, waving their wands as though they were conducting an orchestra of boxes. The witches and wizards who had come to Atlantis had done a fine job of training the Lanteans, thought Carson.

By now, most of them had gone home, back to earth, to England and Scotland and America. But Harry had stayed, for which Carson was grateful; when a settlement had as many enemies as Atlantis did, it was good to have the most powerful wizard in Britain on your side. And Hermione, a tremendously talented witch, had stayed as well, which made Carson even more pleased – for entirely personal reasons.

Hermione reminded Carson a bit of Perna; the same probing, intelligent mind, the same intent focus, the same fierce desire to keep her people safe. An equal but very different beauty. It still made him a bit sad, remembering Perna. But although she had her dark and quiet moments, Hermione laughed more easily than Perna ever had. And it seemed to Carson that as time went by, the dark moments became ever fewer, and the laughter more frequent.

Of course, she was also more than ten years younger than him. And Harry Potter – well, they didn't exactly seem to have a romantic relationship, but it would make sense, wouldn't it? Hermione had never given Carson any reason to believe that she regarded him as anything other than a friend. A fellow countryman, here so very far from Earth. 

A box marked "H Potter" skidded to a stop in front of them. Harry tapped it and grinned at Rodney. "Three dozen Firestrikes. Not as good as Firebolts, but they made me a deal."

"Guns?"

"Broomsticks."

Rodney swallowed and shook his head from side to side, as though he was sure he must have heard it wrong. " _Broom_ sticks?"

A much smaller crate separated itself from the stack next to the Daedalus and deposited itself neatly on top of the first. It was just about the right size, thought Carson, to contain a couple of bats and a couple of —

"Oh, no," said Hermione, but she was smiling.

"Oh, yes," said Harry. "I've always thought Atlantis needed a Quidditch league."

* * *

"So let me get this straight," said Colonel Sheppard, leaning forward across the dining table toward Carson and Hermione. Everyone had wanted to know what Harry's mysterious crates were all about, and Carson had done his best to explain to him, Rodney, and Radek Zelenka; but from the way they were eyeing him, he suspected it wasn't the clearest explanation he'd ever given. "You fly around on the broomsticks and try to get the ball through the hoop."

"Flying basketball. Wonderful," muttered Rodney.

"The Quaffle, yes," said Carson. "Ten points the goal. But there are three hoops."

"Oh, even better. Triple the chances to screw up and get all your teammates pissed off at you."

"I take it you weren't on a sports scholarship?" Sheppard said, amused.

"I'm not exactly built for basketball," said Rodney defensively. "Now, football I can do. Or hockey."

"Or what you call soccer," added Zelenka. "Which is _real_ football."

"But if you can play hockey, you can play Quidditch," said Hermione. "Hockey is hitting the ball with sticks, right?"

"The _puck_."

"Oh, you mean _ice_ hockey. The puck, then. Anyway, the Beaters hit the Bludgers with the bats, which is sort of like hockey."

"And the Bludgers hit the players, which is definitely like hockey," said Carson.

Sheppard frowned. "I thought the ball was the Quaffle?"

"That's the ball that goes through the hoops," Hermione explained. "That's the one the Chasers throw. The Bludgers are the balls that fly around trying to knock the players off their broomsticks. And then of course there's the Golden Snitch."

"And if you catch it the game's over. So you wait until you're ahead, then go for the Snitch. Got it," said Sheppard.

"Except that the Snitch scores 150 points, so you –"

"You've got to be kidding me," said Rodney, staring at Hermione. "That's the stupidest system of scoring in the known universe."

Sheppard raised an eyebrow. "Stupider than tennis?"

"That's a terminology issue! Which, okay, it's pretty stupid, but at least you score a point, it's worth a point, even if they call it something idiotic."

"Got something against love, Rodney?" Sheppard's voice was gently ironic, and Rodney blushed. Carson very nearly blushed as well; just yesterday, Rodney had told him all about his latest spectacular disaster with Katie Brown, which in typical Rodney fashion was a lot more than Carson really wanted to know.

"Oh, I can get 'love' being zero—"

"I think we all can," added Radek wistfully.

"— But then, if you're going to go up by fifteen, three points should be forty-five, not forty! Whoever invented this entirely ridiculous way to score tennis was _obviously_ not a mathematician."

"Obviously," agreed Sheppard.

"Well," said Carson, "points in Quidditch are just points."

Rodney sniffed. "Good. Because I'm not sure I can say 'Quaffle' with a straight face. At least the terminology isn't as idiotic as the scoring."

"We'd best not tell you about blagging and blatching, then," said Hermione with a grin. The others looked at her as though they were not sure she wasn't having them on.

"Er, those are types of fouls," said Carson. "I think. I've not played Quidditch in years."

"Well, you'll get your chance soon," said Hermione. "I think Harry's keen to get the Atlantis league started right away. He told me at breakfast that he'd worked out a schedule with Dr. Weir for giving everyone flying lessons."

"This is going to be really cool," announced Sheppard.

"This is going to be _insane_ ," corrected Rodney.

"You know," said Zelenka to nobody in particular, "this is the very first time that I have been thankful that the gene therapy did not work on me."

* * *

Much to his surprise, Carson was drafted into helping with the flying lessons. "Hermione isn't much of a flyer," Harry explained.

Carson raised an eyebrow. "I thought she was good at everything." 

"Everything that she can do with her brain, yeah. But she's not fond of the broom."

"Well, don't expect much from me. I haven't flown one since I was in school."

"You never forget it, though. At least, that's what they say, you know – it's as easy as riding a broomstick."

Whoever _they_ were, they hadn't the least idea, thought Carson the next day as he gingerly approached the broom Harry held out for him. He could feel the magic quivering in it, like the electrical hum of his laptop computer, or maybe even like a living, breathing creature. He placed it on the ground in front of him, held out his hand, palm down, and whispered, "Up."

The broom gave a shake, but stayed on the ground. "You've got to be firm," offered Harry sympathetically. 

Carson swallowed. "Up!" he said, this time with a bit more volume, and the broom flew up and smacked into his palm. He threw his leg over and slid into the protective field of the Cushioning Charm.

"You've got it," said Harry, jumping onto his own broom. "Now let's do a little follow-the-leader, shall we?"

Carson desperately tried to keep up as Harry led a twisting path among the towers. The city windows glittered all around him, and no doubt it was quite beautiful, but the one downward glance he risked gave him terrible vertigo. Anyway, he was certain that if he took his eyes from Harry for one instant he'd end up smacking into a wall. Round and round they went: a high circle around the command spire, a long swoop out to the western edge of the city, a low skimming flight over the ocean that nearly got his feet wet.

Bit by bit, his mental directives became surer, and the broom responded ever more quickly. As they careered over the greenhouses in the southern wing, he began to gain on Harry, and maybe, he thought, maybe he could catch him – and then Harry looked back, grinned, and abruptly shot up into the sky. He'd just started his climb when Harry descended again and slotted into the space next to him.

"Good work," shouted Harry. "Back to the pitch, now." Harry had marked out a sort of Quidditch pitch on a wide, flat rooftop on the northwestern side of the city. Two tiers of balconies overlooked it on one side, perfect for spectators, and the whole place was far enough from the occupied parts of the city that if a stray Bludger broke a window, nobody would complain. They flew back at something slightly less than breakneck speed, although Carson supposed that Harry no doubt considered it a sedate pace.

"Good work," said Harry again as they landed and dismounted; Harry easily, Carson with a bit more care. "How's it feel?"

"Like I've run a bloody marathon on a cliff with no handrails. I need to be ten years younger." Flying the puddlejumpers had been scary enough, a task he'd gratefully abdicated during his first year in Atlantis, as more and more of the Marines were given the gene therapy. Hanging his arse out over the city on a skinny broomstick was something else entirely. 

But it brought back memories. He'd never been a star at Quidditch, never even been anything more than a reserve player on the Hufflepuff team, but he'd enjoyed the game. And he'd liked flying, circling on a school broom over the green hills surrounding Hogwarts, looking down into the hidden valleys and glens as though he were a hawk. He'd always resented having to give it up each summer during school holidays. 

"See?" Harry said to him. "It all comes back, doesn't it?"

"I suppose. Although I don't believe I've ever seen some of those maneuvers."

"'Course not. I invented them," said Harry, and Carson could hear the pride in his voice. "I thought for a while I might play professional Quidditch, you know." Then he shrugged. "Didn't work out that way, of course."

Of course. Carson still didn't know the details – both Harry and Hermione got very quiet whenever the subject was raised – but he supposed that having to battle the dark wizard Voldemort to the death during what should have been his final year of school might have changed Harry's plans somewhat. Fortunately, the arrival of the first group of Lanteans saved Carson from having to come up with a reply. The next hour was filled with flying: demonstrations, practice, and finally shepherding the new-fledged witches and wizards in a careful circle three feet above the rooftop pitch. 

Unsurprisingly, the Marines who usually piloted the jumpers were the quickest studies. Colonel Sheppard, in particular, took to flying as though he'd been born with a broomstick in his hand, and the look of delight on his face as he swooped back and forth above the still-struggling Lanteans was something to behold. 

"He's a natural," said Harry, and Carson thought he looked slightly envious. "Too bad he didn't grow up as a wizard. The American teams would have paid him pots of money."

"He hasn't even played yet."

"Doesn't matter. He's a born Seeker."

"So how are you planning to organize the teams, then?"

Harry shook his head. "I've no idea. My original plan was to have the military against the scientists, but that would hardly be a fair fight."

Watching the flyers, Carson had to agree. The Marines had to be in good physical condition, but there was no such requirement to be on the Atlantis science team. Several of the scientists were overweight, which slowed their brooms' responses; others clearly had such poor senses of balance and timing that it was a wonder they didn't get flung from their brooms. On the other hand, at least all of the researchers were in the air. Two of the enlisted men were still desperately trying to make their brooms rise from the ground.

"We could make you an honorary scientist for the purpose of the game," he suggested.

"No, I've got to be the referee. We'll figure something out." 

As it turned out, exactly seven women and seven men showed up when Harry called a meeting of all personnel interested in playing Quidditch. After Harry mentioned the all-female Holyhead Harpies, the group spontaneously split into a men's team and a women's team. "Now you need to decide who plays which position. And of course, come up with team names."

"The Puddlejumpers and the Wormholes," Laura Cadman called out instantly. "Guess which is which."

"Oh, _God_ ," muttered Rodney, elbowing Carson in the ribs. "And you used to date her?"

Laura grinned. "Don't act so shocked, McKay. Like you weren't thinking it, too?"

"If it had been _me_ who had said that, you'd have thrown something at me!"

"I like it," said one of the other female Marines. She was big and fit-looking, with short-cropped dark hair and broad shoulders.

"Yeah, okay," Sheppard said. "Puddlejumpers and Wormholes it is. We're gonna fly right through you." Then he did a double-take, his eyes narrowing at the woman who'd spoken. "Oh, Jesus."

The woman and Laura both burst out laughing as Sheppard shook his head ruefully. Then he laughed too, along with the other Marines.

Rodney looked from one to the other, then to Carson, who shrugged. He frowned at Sheppard. "What is it? I don't get it." 

Sheppard sighed. "Rodney – meet Sergeant _Iris_ Greenbaum."

* * *

Carson hadn't thought anyone would be interested in an obscure magical sport. But once the upcoming All-Atlantis Quidditch Tournament was announced, the atmosphere in Atlantis changed. Even though only fourteen people were involved – fifteen, if you counted Harry Potter, who spent his free time patiently coaching both teams – Carson couldn't get through the day without hearing _someone_ mention it. Bets were placed. Banners supporting one team or the other mysteriously showed up draped over balconies or doorways (usually belonging to members of the _other_ team) and just as mysteriously disappeared to be replaced by the banner of the opposing team. Relationships broke up, because of course with the teams split along gender lines, team allegiance often split that way as well.

"I suppose you're supporting the Wormholes," he said to Hermione when they met for dinner one evening. They weren't exactly dating – but they weren't exactly _not_ dating, either. They'd started out as friends, and he hadn't quite mustered up the nerve to make a move. She'd given no indication one way or the other. So friends they remained, though they had dinner together more often than not.

But he liked spending time with her. She was attractive and intelligent and had an intuitive grasp of magic that astounded and impressed him. Yes, she could be pedantic, and sometimes her mouth far outpaced her common sense. But Rodney was like that too, and Carson had been friends with him for years. And Hermione was far nicer to look at.

"I have friends on both teams," she replied, looking into her glass rather than at him.

"Ah."

"Anyway, as the commentator I've got to be neutral, right? I shall cheer you both on equally."

"Diplomatic of you," he murmured, and she laughed.

"One thing nobody has ever accused me of being, I'm afraid. But it will be great fun to have a match here."

"For someone who doesn't play, you're quite a fan."

"Oh, well." She made a small motion with her shoulders, and her hair bounced from side to side. "The game's got such a fascinating history. And I learned a lot when – well, I used to date a fairly famous Seeker, although really, I couldn't call it dating exactly, I was just in school, you know, too young, but – " She cut herself off, looking slightly embarrassed. "I've always enjoyed Quidditch."

"I have, as well."

"Have your team settled on positions yet?"

He laughed. "Almost immediately, actually. It became fairly clear where everyone's talents lay as soon as we took up practice."

"Colonel Sheppard's your Seeker, of course." 

"Of course."

"And I suppose Rodney is Keeper?"

"No, he's to be a Beater. Just like hockey, as you said." Rodney had had a go at Keeper, but his first instinct when the Quaffle came at him was not to block it but to duck out of the way. Which was a perfectly reasonable instinct, Carson thought. It had taken him a while to get over that reflex himself, but he'd had some experience, even if it was back in his school days, and it seemed that his body still remembered what to do. "I'm going to be Keeper. I played the position on the Hufflepuff team – well, reserve Keeper, anyway – and it's coming back. Slowly, to be sure, but it's coming back."

"Oh! Well, that's – that's wonderful," she said, but her voice sounded a bit tight, and there was an odd look in her eyes that hadn't been there before. 

"Hermione?"

She looked down at her plate and pushed her food around with her fork. Pasta and vegetables in a sort of cream sauce; with worries about the Wraith on the back burner for the moment, they'd resumed farming on the mainland, and the crops had been plentiful. One of the botanists who had had the gene therapy was even experimenting in a few greenhouses with magical plants for potions ingredients.

"He was my boyfriend," she finally said softly. "Well, he was one of my best friends, really. He and Harry and I, we did everything together. I was going to marry him. I was just remembering – he loved Quidditch so much. He was our Keeper."

"I thought you said you'd dated a Seeker?"

"No, that was a different – well, it's a long story. And it was a long time ago." She stabbed at a noodle with her fork and deftly wound it around the tines. There were tears in her eyes, and Carson tactfully looked away. "Anyway," she said around a mouthful of pasta, "I'm sure you'll be a wonderful Keeper."

* * *

Looking at his teammates across the rooftop Quidditch pitch, Carson remembered Hermione's words and laughed to himself. The problem with having only as many people on the team as there were positions was that you couldn't practice with a full complement. The three Chasers squared off against the two Beaters, while he flew back and forth in front of the hoops that had only been erected a few days before.

"It's not exactly regulation, but it'll do," Harry had said to him as they watched the Marines hoist the last of the giant hoops into place. They'd fabricated them out of plastic tubing, with metal stanchions that looked like something from a child's playset but which Rodney assured them were nearly as strong as steel I-beams. 

"I suppose so," he had replied doubtfully. "But what if the Quaffle goes through and I don't catch it – or even if it misses the hoop and just keeps going? We're a long way up."

Harry had grinned at him. "You mean like this?" He scooped up the Quaffle and threw it over the edge of the roof before Carson could do more than blink. Then he drew his wand. " _Accio_ Quaffle!"

The Quaffle came bounding back up over the side of the building like an enthusiastic dog running to its owner, and Harry carefully placed it back with the rest of the Quidditch equipment. "It would be best if you blocked the goals, of course. But it was hard enough to get the equipment here, and I don't plan on losing it."

Now Carson hovered in front of the lowest hoop, watching the others. Blocking the goals was getting harder to do as the two Chasers, Lorne and Kaminsky, became ever more proficient. Which he supposed was a good thing, as their Beaters were getting hit by their Bludgers about as often as they were hitting them with their bats. Rodney was always in a foul mood during practice, complaining of his bruises and grumbling darkly about how hockey pucks at least followed the laws of physics, and Carson had almost asked him straight out why he didn't just quit the team.

But he knew the reason: it was their Seeker, who was of course Sheppard. He and Rodney were both close friends and fierce rivals, and if Sheppard was on the team, Rodney had to be on the team. That was just the way things were. And anyway, it wasn't as though Rodney was being singled out by the Bludgers, as the other two Beaters were regularly knocked off their brooms as well. In fact, Carson had to admit – with some surprise – that Rodney had become a better flyer than either of the Marines who were his fellow Beaters. Captain Littlebear had mastered the basics of the broom fairly quickly but tended to fall off during maneuvers if he wasn't holding on with the hand not gripping his bat, while Corporal Billick flew _into_ obstacles rather than _around_ them so many times it almost seemed deliberate.

"All right," said Harry, flying toward them along with Sheppard. They'd been working with the Snitch, and quite honestly Carson had been distracted several times during their practice just watching the sheer artistry of their flight. Harry had been right about Sheppard's talent, Carson thought wistfully. That was what would draw the eye, what would impress the onlookers. What would impress Hermione. He had no illusions about being a particularly great Keeper. Nobody would be looking at him. Except, of course, were he to miss a goal save and let the Wormholes score; then, he was certain, _everybody_ would be looking.

Harry hovered effortlessly in front of the team. "Let's see what you've got. You _have_ been practicing?"

"I've certainly got the bruises to show for it," muttered Rodney, but he expertly maneuvered to his defensive position, followed by the two other Beaters, as the Chasers took up their posts at the far end of the pitch. At a signal from Harry, the Chasers began to drive the Quaffle toward the goal as the Beaters swooped toward them.

Kaminsky, who was surprisingly fit for a meteorologist – apparently he had run a sub-3 hour marathon when he was back on Earth – darted between the Bludgers and then threw the Quaffle down to Lorne, who had dropped down under Rodney and then come up the other side. "That's not fair!" yelled Rodney, as he circled around to whack the Bludger toward the Chasers.

"You've got to think in three dimensions," called Harry. "Careful, Billick!"

The warning was too late. The Bludger spun around in mid-air, changed direction, and caught the back of the Beater's broom. Billick went tumbling off, and only Harry's quick reflexes saved him from what no doubt would have been a compound fracture. Carson had been practicing the healing spells that Hermione had taught him, but he'd just as soon not have to use them, and certainly Billick would not enjoy smashing into the roof.

Lorne passed the Quaffle off to Kaminsky again, and Kaminsky shot it hard toward the left goal – but Carson, fortunately, had wrested his attention from Billick as soon as he'd seen Harry head for him, and he easily stopped the goal and tossed the Quaffle back to Kaminsky. He and Lorne circled back to the far end of the pitch, the Beaters took their positions again – Billick looking decidedly green – and they started again.

This time, the Bludger went right where Rodney had hit it, and knocked the Quaffle off its trajectory. "That's it," called Harry encouragingly, and as the Chasers dove for the Quaffle Rodney went after the Bludger. "Now, give it a good whack and cut them off!"

But Rodney stopped suddenly in mid-air. "Hang on." He was clearly listening to something on the comm, and whatever it was, it was serious, because Sheppard, who had been flying lazy loops above them, brought his broom smoothly down to hover tip-to-tip in front of him. Their eyes met, and they both nodded.

"Sorry, guys," said Sheppard. "There's a situation." Then he and Rodney lifted off and headed toward the command tower, their brooms flying close together as they dipped below the rooftops.

* * *

"But we destroyed both hive ships," said Carson.

"We saw at least one cruiser escape into hyperspace," said Sheppard. He took a bite out of his sandwich and looked around the table. His voice was pitched low, so as not to carry around the cafeteria, but they all knew that eventually, everybody would know the news that the trading mission had brought back. "And there's a strong possibility that some of the darts made it to the gate at M4X-102. We knew there'd be a risk they'd return."

"We were just hoping it would not be so soon," said Teyla.

"It is not so bad," said Radek Zelenka.

"Oh, yes, it is," Rodney muttered into his coffee cup, but Radek continued: "So the team reported that the people they traded with had seen Wraith. But this is a planet quite far from here."

"Not far enough!"

"The point is," said Sheppard, "the people said that the Wraith had been asking questions about Atlantis."

"And of course the way a Wraith asks is to grab you by the throat and threaten to suck your life out if you don't answer the way it wants," said Rodney, rubbing at his neck as though he could feel ghostly Wraith fingers choking him.

"Or even if you do," said Sheppard, and Carson saw him share a humorless smile with Rodney.

Hermione frowned. "I thought that we weren't identifying ourselves as Lanteans to the people of other planets." 

"We are not," said Teyla quietly. "But the Wraith are not stupid."

Silence fell around the table. Carson tried to eat his own sandwich, but it seemed tasteless and soggy to him, and he placed it back on his plate. Teyla was right; the Wraith were not stupid. 

Finally Hermione asked the question that was on his own mind. "How much time do we have?"

Sheppard shrugged. "Hard to say. But they're clearly suspicious. We've got our scanners programmed to look for anything coming our way, but if they send a small enough drone, it could get pretty close before we noticed. We've just got to be aware." He looked around the table and met each person's eyes in turn. "The Wraith are not going to give up just because we whupped their asses once."

"We should be practicing our Patronus skills, then," said Carson with a sigh. "Instead of Quidditch."

"We can do both," said Hermione.

"Good," said Rodney. "Because I've been getting whacked by that stupid ball and dumped off that stupid broom for the last four weeks, and it had better count for _something_."

"Are you getting better at it?"

"Better at getting dumped on my – wait a minute. You're not a spy for the Wormholes, are you?"

"She's going to be the commentator," Carson told him. "She's officially neutral."

"I'm only asking if you're becoming better on a broomstick because – well, if you use magic, you get better at using magic. Even if it's different magic. Directing a broom isn't the same thing as casting a Patronus charm, but if you're improving at one, you'll probably improve at the other."

"I can cast a Patronus," snapped Rodney.

"Which is a good thing," said Sheppard. "Because we're _all_ going to have to practice." He rose to his feet with a smooth motion, then leaned forward, his hands gripping the edge of the table. "They're coming. We don't know when, but they're coming, and we need to be ready."

So they practiced. Quidditch workouts were alternated with magic drills, and all the ATA gene carriers worked on casting the Patronus charm, both individually, and through the puddle jumpers' weapons systems that Rodney, Hermione and Radek had modified when they had first started to explore the use of magic against the Wraith. When Hermione wasn't coaching the new Lantean wizards and witches in magic, she was working on improving these systems.

"I've got to meet with the engineers again," she told Carson ruefully when he'd suggested getting together for dinner. 

"Lunch tomorrow, then? I feel I've only seen you a handful of times in the past week."

"Our schedules have been pretty awful, haven't they. But I miss our dinners together." She smiled. "Let's try for the day after tomorrow, all right? Lunch is just too busy, and I'd have to get right back to work. I'd rather have some quiet time with you when we can relax."

"Sounds perfect," he told her.

Relaxation was certainly hard to come by in these busy days. Between Quidditch, magic practice, and his own work as chief medical officer, he barely had any time to himself. As the Patronus charm had proven a devastating weapon against the Wraith, Elizabeth Weir and Colonel Sheppard had encouraged more Marines, particularly the officers, to volunteer for the gene therapy. Although the actual procedure only took a few minutes, culturing the triggering vaccine was a slow and exacting process, requiring hours in the lab for every dosage.

"It's a pity you can't do it with magic," Elizabeth had said to him. Ever since he had demonstrated to her that not only did magic exist, it could be used to fight the Wraith, she had become one of his most stalwart supporters. Perhaps it was because, through her work with the SGC, she understood better than most that things that were officially denied and even logically implausible – aliens, wormholes, time travel – could, nonetheless, exist. Perhaps it was that she had a romantic view toward magic, as many Muggles did. Or perhaps it was just that she was his friend, and she trusted him.

"Unfortunately magic and medicine aren't particularly compatible. No, that's not really true," he corrected himself. "What I mean is that magic and medicine are complementary. Magic is wonderful for curing magical illnesses, but it doesn't do so well with germs and genes."

"And yet you manage to do both," she had said with a smile. It reminded him of what Hermione had said to him, after they had destroyed the hive ships: that as a girl she had been a voracious reader, escaping into the worlds of magical fantasy and science fiction. Two different kinds of dreams, and both of them, eventually, came true. "Both magic and spaceships," she had said. He still remembered the radiant look on her face. 

So he worked in the lab, applying science to give people the ability to use magic. And he thought about his own dreams, which lately involved Hermione, and dim lighting, and perhaps a bottle of wine. And no Wraith – or other people, for that matter – anywhere on the horizon.

* * *

If Atlantis had been humming with activity before, now it practically vibrated, thought Carson. The schedule of matches for the All-Atlantis Quidditch Tournament had been posted – it would be a series, as Quidditch tournaments always were, with whichever side accumulated the most points in five matches declared the tournament champion – and now it seemed as though all the energy coursing through the city had a focus. They had no idea when the Wraith would come, but they knew when the Puddlejumpers would face off against the Wormholes.

Carson's stomach sank when he saw how many people had shown up for the first match. It hadn't been so bad during the practices, even though just about everybody in Atlantis had shown up at one time or another to goggle at the spectacle of respectable scientists and Marines flying around on brooms and whacking each other with Bludgers. After a few token protests, both teams had given up trying to keep their practices private. "After all," Harry had pointed out, "it's not as though any of you lot have to worry about giving away any secret strategies."

Harry was, unfortunately, right. From his days on the Hufflepuff team, Carson vaguely remembered patterns of attack and defense; there was one play that was popular at the time, the "Dopplebeater Defense" in which both Beaters would hit the same Bludger simultaneously, and the Hufflepuff Beaters spent hours trying to master it. There were other maneuvers involving two or three of the Chasers, and various clever things that the Seeker and Keeper were supposed to do, and every time the team had mastered a new play, they made sure to only practice it when they were sure none of the rival Houses were watching. 

But they had been young, then, and all of them had had years of flying practice before making the team. All of the Atlantis players save himself had been flying for only a few months, and although some of them were clearly quite talented – Colonel Sheppard in particular – many of them were struggling just to stay aloft. And even the talented flyers were not young. At fourteen, Carson had barely been able to do the "Starfish and Stick" maneuver without falling off his broom; now, just the thought of hanging off his broomstick by one hand and a hooked ankle made him shudder. Rodney had already come to him once for muscle relaxant after a particularly strenuous practice. Perhaps if they'd been playing since childhood it would have been easier – or if they had still been under thirty.

So it was going to be mostly a matter of straightforward flying, shooting, and blocking. Which had been reasonable enough to do, in practice. But the balconies that faced the rooftop Quidditch pitch were quickly filling up. He wasn't a bad flyer, and he'd been able to make a few brilliant saves during practice – but that was with nobody watching other than his teammates and Harry Potter. Now the eyes of Atlantis were on him; worse yet, Hermione was front and center, ready to explain the game to all the spectators. Gloomily he imagined it: "And there goes Doctor Carson Beckett, diving for the Quaffle — and he misses the Quaffle, hits the hoop, and falls off his broom, and it's goal to the Wormholes! Better stick to medicine, Doctor!"

Not that he'd ever heard her use the mocking tone he could hear in his mind. It didn't matter. He was going to foul up spectacularly, he just knew it, and everyone in the city would see. 

So deep was his funk that he didn't realize that Hermione, her voice amplified by either a _Sono_ _ru_ _s_ spell or the city communications system, had announced the Puddlejumpers until Rodney jabbed him in the ribs. "Come on, that's us." Taking a deep breath, he commanded his broom to rise and followed his teammates in a circle around the pitch. Maybe the spectators were applauding; he couldn't tell. Maybe they weren't even paying attention.

They lined up in formation in front of the huge rings that represented their goal, and the Wormholes did the same as Hermione read out their names. In lieu of team uniforms, the Wormholes wore blue tabards over their shoulders, and the Puddlejumpers red; like Ravenclaws and Gryffindors, Carson supposed, feeling vaguely disloyal to Hufflepuff in his red. Laura, who was a Chaser, was the only woman on the other team he really knew, other than their Seeker, an engineer named Myra Vasquez he'd treated for migraines. 

Harry flew to the circle that had been marked out in the center to release the balls, and Hermione's amplified voice announced the rules. Because there were no reserve players on either team, and the work of Atlantis couldn't be put on hold for the days it might take for the Snitch to be caught – Harry had told them of one professional game that had lasted for nearly a week, until the captains of both teams had agreed to end it – the traditional rules had been modified. If the Golden Snitch had not been caught after three hours, the team with the most points would win. Simple enough; only that meant that the work of the Keeper was even more important, and Carson was not certain he had practiced enough – that he could _ever_ practice enough – to do a good job.

In the end, though, it didn't matter. Kaminsky's first shot was blocked by the Wormholes' Keeper, but the Quaffle bounced back to Lorne, who passed it back to Kaminsky, and his second shot went through the goal. Not thirty seconds later, though, there was a whoop from far above. Carson looked up, shielding his eyes against the sun, to see Sheppard holding the Golden Snitch above his head. The game was over, less than twenty minutes after it had begun, and he hadn't even come close to the Quaffle.

* * *

"I didn't actually mind not getting to do anything," Carson told Hermione that evening over dinner. He'd invited her back to his rooms, and they were sitting companionably over some kind of roast and a surprisingly good mainland wine. "Nobody can complain about my playing that way."

A sadness crossed her face so quickly he thought he might have imagined it. "Well, the Puddlejumpers did win. At least the first game."

"Yes, well." His glass was empty; he refilled it, then topped off hers as well. "We've got five days between games – that should give me time to practice enough so as not to be an embarrassment to my team."

"You won't be an embarrassment. And if the Wormhole Chasers get by you and score, there's no lasting damage done. The game's usually won or lost by the Seeker."

"Unless it goes three hours."

"Which it didn't come close to today, so never mind your gloom."

He reached out a hand to touch her gently on the wrist. "And what of yours?"

She looked away for a moment, then back at him, and, surprisingly, laughed. "He had a truly disastrous game once, when we were in school. Slytherin House made up an awful song about him. Weasley was born in a bin, he always lets the Quaffle in…" Her voice was pleasant as she sang, but it wavered and trailed off, and quickly she brought her glass to her lips and gulped some wine.

"That was your boyfriend, Weasley?"

"Ron Weasley," she said. "He was a good player, just nervous about the games."

"Like me," Carson said, and then wished he hadn't. "I'm sorry, Hermione, I don't mean to bring up bad memories."

"It was a war. One can't avoid the bad memories."

He nodded. After all, he had his own. "It's part of life, I suppose. Particularly when one lives in a place like this, with enemies on all fronts. So we counter it by trying to build good memories."

"Which has the side benefit of helping with the Patronus charm!"

"Which helps us fight the Wraith," he finished, and lifted his glass; she clinked hers against it, and they both drank.

"It's a pity we can't automate it even further," Hermione mused. "Radek and I have been working on a modification to the city's weaponry system using a Patronus amplification, but you still need to have that happy memory to trigger it."

"Like the modification you did to the jumpers?"

"Yes, exactly."

Carson shuddered. "I'd just as soon not have hive ships bearing down on Atlantis."

"Neither would I. But they're coming."

"You're sure of it."

She shrugged. "It seems likely. Another team reported a sighting. They're in this part of the galaxy, no question. If they come our way –"

"—which they will –" 

"—we've got to be prepared for it, and we'll need to use everything in our arsenal –military _and_ magical. We've been constructing auxiliary control chairs so that each weapons system can be independently deployed. If we need to, we can launch drones from one, fire _Reducto_ from another, and have a battery of wizards channeling _Patronus_ through a third."

"You've done some amazing work with magic and the Ancient technology. The Wraith won't know what hit them." He refilled his glass, then topped off hers, wishing he felt as confident as he'd taken pains to sound. "And this had better be my last glass of wine, or at Quidditch practice tomorrow, I won't know what hit _me_."

"Safe bet it'll be a Bludger," Hermione said, grinning. "Is Harry making you practice first thing in the morning?"

"Ach, no, in the afternoon. I've got a shift of work in the morning. But nothing major scheduled, so it's all right if I'm a little sleepy for that."

"So you've got to get up early?" 

"Not too early, fortunately."

"Good," she said, and she put her glass down, leaned across the table, and kissed him.

* * *

The second game, five days later, went nearly the whole three allotted hours, and by the end of it Carson's entire body ached. Laura had been a demon, taking shot after shot, and her fellow Chasers had been just as relentless. The first time he'd missed a block he'd felt mortified; after the first six or seven had gone in, it didn't seem to matter.

"Jesus, Doctor!" grumbled Rodney after yet another Wormhole goal. He flew close in front of Carson, aiming for one of the Bludgers that was spinning in his direction. "I thought you'd played this before!"

"When I was in school." Carson was still panting with the effort – he'd flown hard toward the Quaffle and spread out his arms to try to block it, and nearly got knocked off his broomstick for his trouble – and could only manage a few words at a time. "Long, long ago. Thanks," he added, as Rodney's bat knocked the Bludger out of its path and toward the Wormholes.

"I do my job, you do yours," said Rodney pointedly, and he flew off toward the other side of the pitch.

"I'm trying," muttered Carson. He had blocked four shots, after all. One in three; that wasn't so bad, was it? Not his fault the Wormhole Chasers were so good.

And it was in the best interests of Atlantis that they _were_ good, for Hermione had been right. The more you practiced magic, no matter what you did, the better you got at it in general. That was why, he realized with a touch of embarrassment, there'd been so much time spent on what had seemed to be silly charms, like the Jelly-legs Jinx, back when the Aurors had come to Atlantis to drill those who'd undergone the gene therapy. Magic wasn't a well from which you could only draw a certain amount of water – it was a skill like any other, and practice made it better and more instinctive.

Fortunately, the Puddlejumper Chasers had also been practicing, and the score was not as uneven as it might have been. The Wormholes' Keeper – the aptly-named Iris Greenbaum – was fast and strong, but Kaminsky and Lorne had nudged the Quaffle past her enough times that the score stood at 120-70, the Wormholes in the lead, when John Sheppard finally captured the Golden Snitch and won the game for the Puddlejumpers.

"Still think it's a stupid scoring system?" said Sheppard as the team finished their celebratory circuit of the rooftop pitch and headed down toward the equipment room to put away their Firestrikes. 

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Yes, of course, it's ridiculous. Even though we won."

"I don't mind it at all," said Carson fervently, and the others laughed.

"I can join you for extra blocking practice," offered Kaminsky. 

Carson shook his head. "Between culturing the vaccine for gene therapy, managing the medical staff, and taking my own shift seeing patients, I've barely enough time for our team practices as it is."

"Gotta keep your skills up, Doc," said Sheppard. 

"Yes, I know, that's what Hermione keeps telling me." The others laughed, and his face flamed. "I meant magic skills. The better we are at flying on broomsticks, the better our Patronuses. Or other charms – I understand we've got them incorporated into our defenses now."

Sheppard nodded. "I've been practicing with the new command chairs, as well as flying the jumpers and shooting their linked, um. Weapon spell things."

" _Weapon spell things_ , give me a break," muttered Rodney under his breath, but Carson heard him anyway.

"Maybe it would work the other way, too," offered Littlebear.

"What other way?"

"Well, the rest of us are drilling with the new weaponry systems and flying the jumpers, using Ancient technology and practicing our spells." _He_ didn't flinch from using the word, Carson noticed. "And we've been getting better at flying – on the brooms, I mean. And if playing Quidditch improves casting spells, then –"

"Yes, yes, of course," interrupted Rodney. "Carson, you've got Ancient technology in your medical lab. You should use it as much as you can; maybe that'll carry over."

He nodded; he remembered that when he'd started using his wand in Atlantis he'd found that using Ancient technology seemed easier and more natural. "It would, you're right. But there's hardly cause for using it in most ordinary applications."

"Then at least get things using the summoning charm, instead of walking across the room," suggested Kaminsky. "Hell, we should all do that. Practice as much as we can."

"It can only help," said Rodney, with a significant look toward Carson.

At least it couldn't hurt, thought Carson. So over the days before the next game, he consciously tried to use magic whenever he could, whether it was an _Accio_ to summon a bottle of reagent, or a cushioning charm on his hard-backed chair. He thought he was moving more swiftly during practice, and he blocked three of every four shots from Lorne and Kaminsky. 

But the third match was another agonizing and prolonged exhibition of just how bad he was at being a Keeper. True, he blocked a few more shots than he had the previous game, so at the end of three hours, when Harry Potter called time, the Wormholes had only ten goals, for one hundred points. But Sergeant Greenbaum had practiced more assiduously – or more likely, thought Carson unhappily, she was just that much better than he was – and the Puddlejumpers had only scored three goals, giving the Wormholes a decisive win.

The fourth match went nearly as fast as the first. Laura scored on him once, but he blocked her second shot as well as the goal attempt of one of her teammates, while Lorne and Kaminsky took several shots each and made none of them. Then the Golden Snitch went whizzing across the pitch, fast and low; Carson only saw a blur as it went by, Sheppard chasing it…and nearly smashing his Firestrike into the Wormholes' Seeker, Vasquez, who triumphantly held it aloft to claim the win.

"I wasn't really trying," said Sheppard afterward. "I figured, if we won, that would be the series. And you all wanted to play another game, right?"

Rodney looked at Carson. "Is he stupid, or lying, do you think?"

"Hey!" said Sheppard, punching Rodney on the arm.

"Lying, I think," said Lorne with a grin.

"Okay, okay! I admit it. She was just faster than me. This time." He looked around at his teammates. "But this means we've gotta win the last one, guys. You know what you need to do."

Carson did, at least. He used magic when he could, and tried hard during team practices. "Is there anything else I can do, do you think?" he asked Hermione during one of their – well, they were definitely dates now, he thought to himself, and had to hide his smile. If the Wraith destroyed Atlantis, at least he would die happy.

She shrugged. "I'm the wrong person to ask. I've told you, I've never played."

"But you know so much about magic, Hermione. There's got to be something I can do to improve."

"Oh, butter me up," she said, laughing. "No, I think you're fine with the magic. It's the athleticism you need to work on, perhaps."

He affected a wounded look. "Ach, well, I've never pretended to be good at sport. I suppose I shouldn't have –"

"Don't be a ninny. I'm glad we have enough players for proper teams. Everyone is having fun watching the games. You should see the bets people are making."

"Dear God."

"Seriously, Carson." She reached out and placed her hand atop his. "If it brings us all together before a crisis, it's a good thing." Then she grinned. "Even if you can't seem to block the goal." 

"Oh, don't you start in on me. I get enough grief from my teammates."

"I'm sorry," she said, eyes sparkling. "Whatever can I do to make it up to you?"

He curled his fingers around her hand and stood, pulling her to her feet, then stepped around the table and slid his other arm around her shoulders. "I have an idea," he murmured into her ear.

It turned out she liked that idea. Very much.

* * *

The days before the fifth and final match reminded Carson of the run-up to the World Cup back home. The red or blue banners hung everywhere now, and partisans wore colored buttons for their favored team.

"At least they don't say _Potter Stinks_ ," said Harry at lunch a few days before the game. A raft of women wearing blue _Go Wormholes!_ buttons had just walked by, sneering at Carson and Zelenka, whose red buttons bore the words, _Fly Puddlejumpers!_

Hermione laughed. "I could make some up, just for you. It would be good practice for my Charms skills."

"What's that about?" asked Carson, looking from one to the other.

"Long story. The Slytherins had it in for me that year."

"I don't mind hearing it. It'd be the first thing anyone said at this table I understood!"

"If you'd rather talk about Quidditch, go sit with them," said Zelenka, waving his hand toward the table where Sheppard and Lorne sat. "Or anywhere else. Everyone here is talking Quidditch, but as for me, I am happy for the opportunity to talk about something _important_."

"Don't pretend you don't care about the game, Radek," said Hermione, reaching out to tap the red button he wore.

"I will enjoy watching the game, I admit. But it is the new command system that interests me more." 

"As long as it works," said Carson. "That's what interests _me_." They'd been talking about it at lunch, but most of the conversation had gone over his head. Carson was only there because he'd been taking lunch with Hermione lately. He already knew, from what Hermione had told him, that they'd built additional command chairs to control the city defenses. The intricacies of their interfaces with the drone battery and the spell-casting foci were beyond him. Hopefully he wouldn't be called on to use them, either, now that so many Atlantis personnel had undergone the gene therapy.

"It _should_ work," said Hermione.

"Of course it will work," said Harry. "Honestly, Carson, the interface is brilliant. It's a pity Radek can't operate it –"

"I don't mind at all, I assure you," Zelenka interjected.

"—but really, you'll be able to do so much. It's like what we did on the jumpers, only because we can have more people here on the ground, we can link many more wizards to really blast those things out of the sky."

"We?" murmured Hermione, and Harry laughed.

"Oh, come on, I helped. I'm the visionary. And the instructor."

"Yes, yes, very good," said Zelenka, "but the fact is you've been instructing people with, what would you say? Empty ammunition?"

"Shooting blanks," offered Carson, and Zelenka nodded.

"Shooting blanks, exactly. We won't know how it works until we have something to shoot at. And at that point, it had better work, yes?"

"It will," said Harry.

"Good," said Zelenka. "Because it is sounding to me like we are going to find out soon."

"How soon?" asked Carson.

Zelenka shrugged. "A week? Maybe ten days. Maybe tomorrow."

"God, no." It was one thing to know, vaguely, that the Wraith were on their way. It was another to be told they'd be arriving the next day.

"Probably not tomorrow," said Colonel Sheppard, and Carson looked up, surprised. He'd not seen the man approach their table. "But we got a report this morning from the monitoring equipment we placed on M3X-617 last week. It's detected signatures of dart movement in that sector of space."

"Which is along the path they need to travel to get here," added Zelenka.

"Are there hive ships?" asked Hermione.

"Don't know yet. We haven't seen anything on the deep-space sensors, and hive ships are too big to miss. I'm guessing they're still a little gun-shy and don't want to risk them until they can check out the situation."

"So why not do what we did last time? Head out with a fleet of puddlejumpers and destroy them all before they get here?"

"We can't track the darts as well as we were able to track the hive ships. Too small, too many travel options. They can use intermediary stargates, and it's possible they have some we don't know about. So we're just going to sit tight and let them come to us."

"And when they do, we're going to blow them out of the sky," said Harry cheerfully. "We've got a whole battery of witches and wizards defending Atlantis now."

"I hope they're better at that than I am at defending our goal," muttered Carson, and Sheppard laughed. 

"Don't worry, Doc. You take care of that Quaffle, and we'll take care of the darts."

* * *

The morning of the final game dawned clear and cold, with a brisk wind bringing the chill of the ocean across the city. Carson worked on his cultures until noon, then did paperwork while eating a very small lunch at his desk. The game was to be that afternoon, and his stomach was already twisting and diving as though in preparation for the broomstick.

But when he flew out to take his position, he wished he hadn't eaten anything at all. It seemed the entire city had come out for the game; the temporary stands that had been built around the rooftop were entirely full of people dressed in blue or red, depending on team allegiance. They shouted as he and his teammates went by, and he was rather glad for the wind whistling in his ears that kept him from hearing exactly what it was they were shouting.

He hovered in front of the Puddlejumpers' goal rings. The wind had settled a bit, but still blew hard enough across the pitch from one side to the other that the Chasers of both teams would have to account for it when they threw the Quaffle. That might at least hold down the Wormholes' score, thought Carson, trying to be optimistic. The way the wind pushed at the bristles on the back end of his broomstick, turning him off his intended course, he'd be lucky to stay on it, let alone block any shots.

At least everybody seemed to have the same problem. Billick's seat had improved over the weeks, but he still looked on the verge of slipping off. The Wormholes, arrayed across the pitch on the other side of the centerline, were also visibly having difficulty hovering in their assigned places. Harry Potter, flying into the space between the teams to release the balls, was the only one on a broom who looked remotely comfortable.

The crowds in the stands cheered as Harry released the four balls. The magic imbued in the balls ensured they moved in four different directions: the Quaffle drifted slowly downward, the Chasers from both teams darting in its direction; the Bludgers aimed themselves for the Chasers, and the Golden Snitch shot into the sky, followed shortly by Sheppard and Vasquez, and the game was on.

An hour later, the score stood at a mere four goals for the Wormholes to three for the Puddlejumpers. The points had been hard-won on both sides; the Chasers on both sides had had trouble adjusting to the wind, and the Quaffle had sailed harmlessly by the goals a number of times before the first points were scored. The Bludgers seemed particularly manic, bouncing off the bats and the rooftop in apparently random directions, and Carson had been nipped in the leg by one that had escaped Billick's bat. 

The Snitch, too, was flying erratically, leading the Seekers in wild loops of flight out to the farthest reaches of the city, down to the water, then back up to the rooftop and through the stands. The crowd murmured as it zipped by them, darting between rows of people, and Vasquez nearly hit several of the spectators with her broomstick as she zoomed after it. Sheppard came in from the side, and for a moment Carson thought he might grab the Snitch, but it made a leap upward and then circled back behind the stands.

"Watch out!" It was Rodney's voice, close-by and urgent.

Carson ducked instinctively as his broom dropped, then hovered again a meter below its former position. He felt the whoosh of air from the Bludger that had just missed his head, and shuddered. "Too close by half," he muttered.

Rodney whacked the Bludger hard, but it only moved a short distance before reversing itself and coming right back at him. He gave it another shove with the bat; this time it sullenly floated in front of him for a few moments, then abruptly plummeted.

"I don't remember it being so intent on hitting us before," said Carson. Funny, too, that the Bludger was staying by them, near the Puddlejumper goal rings, when most of the other players were at the far end of the pitch, where Lorne and Littlebear were passing the Quaffle between them as they tried to fly into a good position to try for a goal.

Rodney grimaced. "It's always trying to hit us. It's a ball of pure malevolence." As he spoke, the Bludger came rocketing back up at them, and he hit it with the bat again. "I can't believe I'm playing this stupid game."

"Well, it's supposed to try to hit us. But it seems worse this match. Like it thinks my head is a magnet."

"Your head is not – wait, no, hold that thought." A strange look came over Rodney's face. "Something's altering whatever it's using for guidance. Electromagnetic field, maybe, yeah, you could be right." Carson, who had not exactly meant it that way, didn't bother correcting him. "But that means –"

"Heads up!" boomed a woman's voice – it was Hermione's amplified voice, painfully loud – and they both turned. The Bludger was rocketing toward them through the stands, cutting a straight path through the spectators who dove to each side to avoid being hit. No, realized Carson suddenly, that wasn't a Bludger at all. 

It was a Wraith drone.

Instinctively he shouted at Rodney, who – just as instinctively, Carson suspected – was heading toward it with his bat at the ready. Either Rodney hadn't heard or didn't care. The bat swung. There was a horrendous cracking noise and Carson's eyes filled with a bright white light. He spun in the air, blinded and disoriented, clutching his broomstick. Hermione's amplified voice boomed in his ears, but he couldn't make out the words. For one heart-stopping moment he wasn't sure if he was still aloft, or if he and his broom were hurtling toward the unforgiving surface of the rooftop below.

His vision cleared; his broomstick was sliding to a gentle halt next to the lowest ring of the Puddlejumper goal. He reached out to clasp his hand around it. It felt good to be solidly connected to something, and his churning stomach began to quiet.

"—to battle stations," he heard, as the wall of sound echoing in his head abruptly resolved. Screams and shouts, and the percussive blasts of weapons and spells, and over it all, Hermione's voice, calm and authoritative. "Non-combat personnel proceed to designated shelters." 

Breathing deeply, his hand firmly locked to the goal, Carson looked around at what was left of the game. The stands were in chaos. More Wraith drones had appeared, a half-dozen small spinning globes that darted and weaved as though driven by the same magic that animated the Golden Snitch. The spectators had abandoned their seats and were streaming for the exits that would take them back into the city. Some of the players were following them on their brooms, but others seemed to be flying toward the drones. 

As he watched, Harry Potter swooped by on his broomstick, his wand held out before him. "Reducto!" One of the drones shattered into small pieces which dropped to the rooftop below. 

Carson looked down. Rodney lay on his side on the rooftop, clutching his arm and moaning. That was something he could help with, at least. He let go of the goal ring and flew down to kneel beside the other man.

"Rodney. Let me see that."

"It's broken, I know it is," grumbled Rodney, but he turned so Carson could inspect his arm. "That drone slammed into – _ow!_ "

"I'm hardly touching you."

"You're _torturing_ me. Yes, that hurts. That does, too."

"Mm. What happened to the bat?" Rodney motioned with his head, and Carson saw its splintered remains littered across the rooftop. "Well, it got the worst of it. Hold on." He grasped Rodney's hand and positioned himself.

"What – _ow!_ " Rodney snatched his hand back and rubbed his elbow. "That's no way to treat a broken arm!"

"It wasn't broken, just dislocated." He held up a hand to forestall the inevitable protest. "Yes, I know it hurt to have it moved back in place, but you should be all right now. Try not to use the arm for a while. I could put it in a sling –"

Rodney was already scrambling to his feet. "No, no, there's too much to do. I'm sure Elizabeth has been calling me for the last five minutes, but the comm system's been down." Belatedly Carson realized he hadn't heard anything from his own earpiece since the drone had exploded – surely there were medical casualties, things to attend to. He, too, climbed to his feet.

It would be fastest to fly, he decided, and straddled his broom. Rodney looked over at him, sighed, and grabbed his own broom. "Up," he said, and Carson echoed it, their brooms rising to meet them. Then, just as they were about to fly toward their respective destinations, Hermione's amplified voice cut through the din. 

"Carson, Rodney – to Harry! He needs you up here!"

"Where?" shouted Rodney, as they both looked around. There was no way she could have heard them, but a ball-shaped glow of bright orange appeared in front of them and then moved off diagonally across the pitch. At the edge of the roof it halted, dimming and making little movements as though impatient for them to follow. 

"That way, apparently," said Carson, and flew toward the glow.

It led them across the city in a drunkard's walk. Straight across the city for several hundred meters, then a big arc to the left, then a shorter one to the right. "This is lunacy!" shouted Carson as his broom lurched underneath him in a rapid change of direction.

"No, I see them!" Rodney called back, and then Carson did, too. The glow had squiggled across the sky because it had been chasing a moving target. Ahead of them were Harry Potter and six of the Atlantis Quidditch players, darting back and forth around a solitary Wraith drone.

The orange glow-ball faded out as they approached. "Good," panted Harry as they approached. "Box it in! Don't destroy it!"

That was what they were doing, Carson realized, as he and Rodney flew to join the rest of them: boxing it in, surrounding the drone to prevent its escape. Taking it alive, as it were, although of course it was a drone, and so not alive, exactly. Though it was a Wraith drone, so if it were like a Wraith ship, it was, just a little.

They wove a complex pattern around the drone as it darted and dove, spinning past each other and around each other in three dimensions. It was a wonder nobody crashed into each other, or into a building, thought Carson. But every one of them flew smoothly, even Corporal Billick. The Quidditch practice had paid off in unexpected ways.

"Push it left, if you can," called Colonel Sheppard. It made sense; they were below the level of the tallest buildings now, and a wall rose above them and to the left, not far away. If they could trap it there, they'd have it.

The drone darted between two of the flyers, and Carson dove toward the gap to block it. Constrained to the smaller space between the Quidditch players, it wasn't moving nearly as fast as the Bludger or the free-flying drones that had hurtled among them on the pitch, but it still hurt when it bounced off his shoulder.

"Now, why couldn't you do that in the game, Doc?" said John Sheppard, grinning at him as he spun by, blocking the drone from above. 

"Grab it if you can!" yelled Lorne as he whipped around them, but the thing swerved and darted in the narrowing space. Billick reached out for it but drew his arm back with a curse when it smashed into him. 

Harry Potter pulled out his wand and shouted a spell, and a tracery of silver shot out from the end of his wand like a net, tangling the drone in its threads and causing it to slow. That was what they should have thought of first, Carson realized, but of course they weren't used to casting spells from their brooms. He couldn't cast a net himself –it would interfere with Harry's – but maybe a Jelly-legs Jinx would slow it down further?

It did. The animate component of the drone reacted just like flesh, vibrating and losing the ability for cohesive motion, and gradually it wobbled to a halt in the net at the end of Harry's wand.

"Good work," panted Rodney. Someone else let out a whoop.

Sheppard looked over at Carson. "Shouldn't you be in the infirmary, Doc?"

He felt himself blushing. He _should_ be in the infirmary. Not on a broomstick chasing Wraith drones. "You're right, of course." He wheeled his broom around to go, but Sheppard reached out and put his hand on Carson's arm for a moment.

"You did good," he said warmly.

"Yes, yes, we all did good," said Rodney. "Now let's get this thing back to the lab."

* * *

He'd flown a cautious path back to the heart of Atlantis, but the aerial fight seemed to have moved to a point slightly offshore, where a small number of darts and puddlejumpers skirmished in a flurry of percussive explosion, so he didn't have to do much maneuvering. Energy beams were just visible arcing toward the top of the atmosphere, and drones – their drones – swarmed through the sky. It was an attack, but it wasn't a full-on assault, and for that Carson was thankful.

The communications systems had come up when he was nearly there, cutting in abruptly with a terse message from Elizabeth. Military units were mobilized. Civilian personnel could return to duty as long as they remained indoors within the city's core, protected by the weapons systems that were currently deployed to repel the intruders. Five Wraith darts had been confirmed destroyed; at least three were still attacking. It was unknown if any Wraith had beamed into the city. "Keep a sharp lookout," she said finally, and signed off.

The infirmary was busy, but not overwhelmed. Fortunately there had not been many injuries. The drones that had cut through the spectators had cracked a few bones, and one woman had been burned by the friction of a drone's passage, or perhaps a poorly-aimed energy weapon. The person who had been hurt the worst was Myra Vasquez, the Wormholes' Seeker, who'd been knocked from her broom from thirty feet up by a Bludger and broken her ankle when she fell to the roof. 

"The Bludgers were acting odd, weren't they," he said as he laid on the cast. He'd used a spell Hermione had taught him that would make the bone knit more quickly and strongly, but immobilization was still important. "Rodney thought their guidance was being affected by the drones."

"That makes sense," said Vasquez. "The power systems of the Wraith and the Ancients seem to be pretty similar to the wizards' magic."

"You don't seem to have a problem with the idea of magic. Rare for an engineer."

She laughed. "You mean, as opposed to McKay? He's pretty funny about it, all right. But I figure, if it works, it works. Who cares what you call it?"

He sent her on her way with a pair of crutches and settled in to wait. If this was to be the big showdown there might be a flood of casualties, as the Wraith arrived in the skies above Atlantis and began to bombard the city. But no such assault materialized. A few injured Marines came in; one man had been concussed when his jumper had been slammed by a dart, and two soldiers had been caught by crossfire, but the injuries were all relatively minor and for the most part there was little to do but track the comm chatter obsessively and watch the security screens that were all turned to track the skies.

When the all-clear sounded over the comms, everybody in the infirmary gave a sigh of relief. "Well, that's it, then," said Carson to his staff. "Get some rest."

He himself was called to the briefing room, but that was fine; he would have gone anyway, just to find out what had happened. He slipped into the room just ahead of Rodney; Elizabeth, Teyla, Sheppard, Hermione, and Harry were already there.

One by one each gave a report: on the people, their equipment, the city and its defenses. The drones and darts that had smashed into the buildings of Atlantis had done a surprisingly small amount of damage; the Ancient materials were absurdly strong. Two Wraith had beamed into the city, and both had been killed. One jumper had been destroyed, and another wrecked but reparable. Carson summarized the modest injury list. All in all, he thought, they'd got off lightly, for a Wraith attack.

"Why didn't our sensors register the drones earlier?" asked Elizabeth.

"Too small," said Rodney. "But!" he added, holding up a finger. "During the attack, we noticed that they perturb the energy fields in, uh, interesting ways."

"You mean that they made the Bludgers go mad," said Harry.

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Anyway, Zelenka has a plan to modify our perimeter sensors to detect this perturbation signature. Should give us more warning if they try anything like this again."

"They do it, and we'll whup their asses again," said Colonel Sheppard, folding his hands together on the table in front of him. "Because it looks to me like the Wraith came knocking at our door, and we destroyed them."

"'Destroyed' is a strong term," observed Elizabeth.

"Well, I don't know how else you'd describe the complete obliteration of nine darts and a dozen or more drones."

"Plus two drones captured," added Rodney.

"Two?" Carson had only seen the one he'd helped bring in. It was unsettling to think they'd had to chase more down.

"We got another one after you left. My people are taking them apart in the lab even as we speak."

"I hope that you're not speaking literally, since it's well past midnight," said Elizabeth, and that startled Carson; had it really been so long? In one sense, it seemed that the attack had begun only moments ago. Yet the Quidditch game they'd been playing when it had happened seemed days, even weeks in the past.

"We've got to reprogram them as soon as we can," said Hermione. "They're our best weapon now."

"Start at the beginning," ordered Elizabeth.

Sheppard took over again, describing how the battle had progressed after the Quidditch game had been broken up by the attack. "The drones were the first wave. I imagine they were intended to relay intel back to the darts, but we got most of them before the darts were even in range. And by then we were already mobilized."

They'd scrambled jumpers into the air and operators to the control chairs. "The new hybrid weapons systems worked brilliantly," said Harry, grinning like a schoolboy. "It's so seamless that you can hardly tell whether you're shooting a gun or casting a spell."

"It made the difference," said Sheppard. "We blasted the darts and the drones out of the sky. And that's all there was to blast. Our short-range scanners didn't see any hive ships or cruisers. We think this was just an exploratory scouting team."

"Surely there must be a hive ship out there." Elizabeth shook her head. "They can't be totally unsupported."

"After we blew them up last time, I bet they're staying far away. Anyway, hive ships are slow. Even if they're heading this way, they're probably weeks away, at least. We haven't picked them up yet on even the longest-range deep-space sensors."

"Which means that we still have a chance to fool them," said Hermione, nodding. "We reprogram their drones to return to their hive ships with a deceptive message, laying a false trail that will lead them somewhere else. Hopefully somewhere very hazardous to Wraith."

"Or we send a bomb," said Sheppard.

"In a drone? You can't fit a nuke in a drone," scoffed Rodney.

"Nuclear explosives are only one type of –"

"There is no way you can destroy a hive ship without –"

"Gentlemen!" Elizabeth's voice cut through their squabbling. "It's been a long day, and the details of how we will proceed can be decided later. Right now I think it's important that we all get some rest. Well done, everyone."

She stood, a clear signal that the meeting was at an end. They all gathered their things, but Carson could tell Sheppard was still uneasy. 

"I still think we should be proactive," he said as he pushed his chair away from the table. "I don't think it's a good idea to twiddle our thumbs while we wait for them to wise up and come after us."

"We can't wipe them out completely," said Rodney. "What would you do without Wraith to kill?" 

"Well, I wouldn't have to practice the Patronus Charm as much," said Carson, and the others laughed. They were all filing out of the briefing room now, heading toward staff quarters. He _was_ tired, he realized. 

"It's not as though we don't have plenty of other enemies," said Teyla.

"Would be nice to get them all off our backs, though. I could do a lot more with my ATA trials if I didn't have to keep patching up you lot."

"True," said Rodney. "I wouldn't mind having some research time that wasn't interrupted by having to invent something to get the rest of you out of trouble."

"Best of all," added Harry, "If we didn't have to fight enemies, we'd have time for the most important thing of all."

"And that is?"

Harry grinned. "Quidditch, of course!

"Oh, no. I am never playing that stupid game again."

"Come on, Rodney." Sheppard elbowed him in the ribs. "We've got to make up that last game, since it was so rudely interrupted before we could win."

"You hate me, don't you. Okay, fine. As long as we can play it without Wraith drones hitting us. Did I tell you one dislocated my arm?" 

"Only six times."

The two of them turned at the intersection and continued down the hall, Rodney complaining all the while.

Harry shook his head, watching them. "Are they always like that?"

"Always," said Teyla. "Good night, everybody. I will see you in the morning." 

Carson headed for his rooms, Hermione beside him. "Can you really reprogram the drones to fool the Wraith?" he asked her.

"It's worth a try. Even if we can't, we're learning a lot about the Wraith from studying the drones we captured. And I heard you're to thank for that – Harry told me you brought the one down with the Jelly-legs Jinx," she added. "Well done."

He laughed, a bit embarrassed. "I suppose I'm getting better at remembering to use magic. All that practice."

"Like anything else, of course. Including fighting the Wraith. Even if we can't get them out of our hair entirely, we can continue to improve our defenses against them."

They'd reached his door, and Carson hesitated. "I know it's late – you're probably dead tired."

"And I've got a lot of work to do tomorrow." Then she smiled and slid her hand into his. "But that's tomorrow."

He opened the door and they went into his quarters. Hermione was right: even if they couldn't destroy every Wraith in the Pegasus galaxy, they were learning more from every encounter, making their position a little less precarious each time. And Teyla was right as well: there would always be enemies out there. But they'd made it this far. They'd make it to tomorrow, and to the next tomorrow. 

Tonight he had the woman he loved at his side; he'd worry about the future tomorrow.


End file.
